


After the Rain

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Post-Canon, Prompt Fic, Xing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-15 09:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1299205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May has a revelation in the light of day, just before the rainshower ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "May Fan: May's pregnant. Lan Fan has to tell her. Bonus: Lan Fan finding out."
> 
> Since I headcanon May as cis and Lan Fan as trans, it could totally happen that May could bear their biological child. Which is also ridiculously cute. Although I headcanon May as ace, I can picture them having done it once or twice specifically for the purpose of having kids, since I think that May would love being a mother. I'll tackle the other half of the prompt later; thank you!
> 
> Unbeta'd due to length.

“What are you thinking about?”

The leaves bend from the weight of raindrops slicking over the fanned green and dribbling slowly into the pooling waters below. High up in an ancient tree, fingers curved over the bark and legs angled to hug the branch, Lan Fan observes the patterns of droplets that cascade in visible arcs, veritable rainbows of shades of grey between layers of the forest canopy.

In her lap, Xiao Mei shifts to a more comfortable position. Cautiously reaching up her right hand, Lan Fan extends the muffler about her neck to better shield the panda from the rain before gripping the branch again.

“The rain, mostly.”

May sighs. Perched on the branch by Lan Fan’s left, her slipper shoes hanging from a thread around her neck, she nudges Lan Fan’s shoulder with her head. The moisture has puffed up her hair until the multicoloured bands can barely contain the sheer volume of her locks, and her braids have transformed into indescribable fluffs. Every so often May notices Lan Fan’s pupils dart in her direction, glance just past her shoulders, and brighten. Only a trick of the light, perhaps. But May can sense her _chi_ brighten in the same beat.

May nudges her shoulder again. The fabric cushions the metallic hardness she knows lies within. “The only thing in the _whole_ wide world that you’re thinking about, is the rain?”

“Mostly,” Lan Fan echoes. A crescent-moon smile ghosts over her lips, almost eclipsing a smirk. In the slightly flattened slope of her shoulders and the upwards tilt of her chin, she betrays her amusement. May contains her laughter.

“Well then. What’s the other bit you’re thinking about?”

Lan Fan’s cheek curves outwards; she’s biting her tongue, as May is well aware. “You’ve always been the intuitive one, May. Perhaps you know.”

May knows. But instead she lifts herself up on her left foot, balancing precariously on the roundness of the branch, to scoot more closely to Lan Fan, to slide her right palm around Lan Fan’s waist and settle it on her right hip. “Me, right?”

“Mm. Not at this very instant.” May arches an eyebrow: Lan Fan rarely enters such a mood of bemusement. Of contentment. Of playfulness, even.

“Ah, you have wounded the heart of a young maiden! And where is her valiant knight to protect her from this fearsome beast” May claps her hand to her breast, senses herself wobble on the pads of her feet, and feels Lan Fan’s steadying knuckles in the small of her back. “Thank you.”

“You haven’t keyed into the Pulse recently.” Lan Fan barks out a sharp note of laugher, more bemused than anything, and May narrows her eyes. “Or perhaps the northern methods of reading _chi_ can’t pick up something that isn’t—” She runs her tongue over her lower lip. “—an _anomaly_. So much as an addition to the flow.”

May tilts her head to the side at the same instant as Xiao Mei does the same; the panda’s ears twitch. Dipping into the _chi_ , she feels the river ripple around them, feels the raindroplets in the sky, feels the individual whispers of birds seeking shelters in hollows and deer waiting beneath the canopy for the maelstrom’s end. The river curves and plays beneath her fingers. Slowly, deliberately, she unwinds the threads. Searches for anomalies. No, not for anomalies. For additions of which she has yet to take note.

When she finds nothing from the typical flow and pulse of _chi_ she frowns, glances towards Lan Fan, blinks twice to voice her confusion. Lan Fan’s hand ventures from the small of back, tracing warmth on the way, to her hip, to her abdomen.

To her belly.

May lifts her chin up. At the corners of Lan Fan’s eyes sparkles wetness, either rain or tears, though May would hedge a bet on the latter and Lan Fan would insist on the former. Her smile could level mountains for its brilliance. “An addition to the flow.”

“An addition to the . . .” May’s eyes widen. She shakes her head; one of the bands in her hair snaps and her braid tumble forth in a thick clump of sable against her back. By the time she manages to discover her voice her mouth has already curved into the shape of the word: “Really?”

In that moment her centre of gravity tips again. Inhaling she lunges forward the branch only for Lan Fan to catch her with both arms enfolding her, pulling her into her waiting lap. Xiao Mei squeaks in desperate protest; the branch creaks threateningly beneath them.

As inviting as Lan Fan’s might be, May scrambles backwards towards the base of the branch until she crouches, dog-like, feet beneath her rear, hands around the bark. Lan Fan bursts out laughing. “Yes, really.”

May opens her mouth. Closes it. Speechless except for a series of noises akin to a bird’s exuberant trilling at the first blossom of spring. But in her cheek-aching grin and shiny-wet irises and excite-song gasps, perhaps Lan Fan can see her joy.

 _Chi_. There. There, in the very centre of her form, the tiny eddies that swirl around the barest interruption to the flow.

She wobbles, again, and Lan Fan is holding her shoulder at once. By her side in a less than a flash. Beaming. Eyes soft, smile softer.

Overhead the rain slows, silences, ceases. A hint of daylight through the treetops. The entirety of the sun in their palms.


End file.
